Right now, the American media is dominated by discussion of Michael Wolff’s forthcoming book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House. Towards the end of the incendiary excerpt published in New York Magazine, Katie Walsh, Deputy Chief Staff until March, 2017, is quoted saying that working with the president was “‘like trying to figure out what a child wants.’” (More…)
It should come as no surprise as a secularist, atheist and a communist that I am opposed to the religious theocracy that currently governs Iran. The governing theocrats hijacked the popular revolution of 1979 led by communists, workers and students. (More…)
As world powers push ahead with diplomatic attempts to end the war in Syria, any potential political settlements must address the key component of power distribution, according to Imad Salamey, associate professor of political science at the Lebanese American University in Beirut. (More…)
One hears a lot of talk these days about the existential threat to Republican Party posed by Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, Roy Moore and a host of other figures who, in another political season, would have been considered well beyond the lunatic fringe. But claims about the imminent demise of the Republicans are, to say the least, overblown. (More…)
Inflammatory statements by Italian politicians fall on fertile ground. Recent surveys indicate that Italians dislike and fear Roma, often on the basis of little or no experience with them. At the heart of Italy’s treatment of Roma is racism — the entrenched conviction, often unconsciously held and acted upon in ignorance, that Roma are strange, biological others who do not belong in Italy and whose presence in the country is unfortunate. (More…)
BERLIN – On religious holidays, Sadiqu al-Mousllie, a devout Muslim who has been living in Germany for most of his life, closes his dental clinic and takes his children out of school so they can attend mosque together. (More…)
As I was returning to my rental car last week after yet another trip to the massive Wegmans supermarket across the street from our hotel, I was delighted to see that the snow that had started falling a half hour earlier was really piling up, even on the well-salted asphalt of the parking lot. Although I may be closer to 50 than 5, my internal programming remains the same. (More…)
You’ve all heard the cliche. You may have started out as a young socialist, but the older you get the more conservative you become. This is the smug claim of people who never had a sense of reality. It’s always worth asking if such smug claims stand up to scrutiny. (More…)
BEIRUT – The same day that President Vladimir Putin declared victory over the so-called Islamic State, the militant group launched a surprise offensive against government forces in Deir Ezzor province, killing up to 31 pro-government fighters in the following three days. (More…)
The American public sphere has spent the last couple of weeks transfixed by the special election in Alabama being held to fill the Senate seat vacated by Jeff Sessions. In the current climate, pretty much every election that happens, from local dog catcher on up the line, is characterized in the media as a referendum on Trumpism. (More…)
It will soon be a week since the May government secured the first part of the Brexit deal, it concerns the Irish border and the full alignment of UK regulations with EU standards. But what is more important than the minutiae of the agreement is what this says about the British withdrawal. (More…)
ISTANBUL – Um Farouk almost drowned on her first trip from Turkey to Greece. The 47-year-old Syrian refugee said it was a “miracle” Turkish soldiers rescued her and 40 others from a boat that capsized in the Aegean Sea last year. Within a week, she tried the dangerous trip to Europe a second time with her son. (More…)